Saturday, March 29, 2014

REVIEW 251: YOUNGISTAAN

The core concept of Youngistaan
is highly believable considering India’s political culture and the current scenario.
After all, the story of a carefree young Indian techie in Tokyo, compelled by
circumstances to succeed his dad as India’s Prime Minister, has resonance in
the subcontinent where dynasties are a political staple. Jackky Bhagnani plays
the man in question, Abhimanyu Kaul, whose life turns upside down when his
dying father (Boman Irani) asks him to take over his job. With their party
expecting a defeat in the coming election, the newbie finds his seniors happy
to prop him up as their boss since they know they’ll need a scapegoat for the
rout. As it turns out, the novice is not the nincompoop they were expecting him
to be, he has some clever tricks up his sleeve in addition to his primary weapons:
basic decency, honesty, straightforwardness with the public, and his father’s
advice.

Sharp concepts unfortunately don’t always translate into
great films. Youngistaan slips up at
the word go with its casting. Jackky is clearly an earnest, well-meaning boy,
but although he has become comfortable enough before the camera to pull off films
like F.a.l.t.u. and Rangrezzwith an
ensemble of leads, he simply does not have what it takes yet to fill out a solo
lead role, especially that of a charismatic youth leader pulling a fast one on
political veterans.

Watching him at work, I found myself wondering what this film
might have been if he’d been replaced by Neil Bhoopalam who recently played a
similar role in Anil Kapoor’s 24. Jackky’s
problems are compounded by the fact that he is surrounded here by heavyweights who
shine despite getting far less screen time. That includes the late Farooque Shaikh doing
a wonderful job as his father’s PA Akbar Uncle, Karnataka theatre’s Prakash
Belawadi as his slimy bête noir and Brijendra Kala in a teeny appearance as a
kulfi seller. Neha Sharma as Abhi’s girlfriend is not bad either, when she’s
given something to do beyond being cutesy and young.

The screenplay makes some entertaining allusions to the
Congress party, which Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram are unlikely to find
amusing in the unlikely event that they watch Youngistaan. Belawadi plays a corrupt, mundu-clad southern Indian Union
Minister who gets outsmarted by the initially reluctant youth leader. Also in
the picture is an elderly Bengali politico who Abhimanyu kicks upstairs to the
post of President of India. So there is some fun to be had playing
spot-the-real-life-neta among those
around Abhi; and if they are meant to be who we guess they are meant to be, then
Rahul Gandhi should be very flattered by this film.

Some of Abhi’s trump cards are not bad at the idea level either,
but the writing needed more sophistication to make their execution sound more
credible. The film throws up some thought-provoking questions about privacy and
how public life can force certain choices on you. On the other hand, it forgets
that the Indian media – notwithstanding all its flaws – tends to stay away from
the personal lives of politicians, rarely letting go of its don’t-ask-don’t-tell
policy. The writer seems unaware that a number of high-profile politicians in
this country are in live-in relationships that the media has not reported, so
the screenplay should have given us a strong reason why our journalists would
change this long-standing practice only for Abhimanyu Kaul.

In fact, in a bid to introduce serious issues into the
discussion, Youngistaan unthinkingly
transposes Western realities on to the Indian scenario. Paparazzi in the West
may fly choppers over private villas to photograph a princess sunbathing
topless, they perch themselves in trees to get a shot of a disgraced star peeping
out of his window, they chase Diana and Dodi through a tunnel in Paris…but even
the worst, most intrusive Indian news photographers haven’t done one-tenth of
that. So again: why would the Indian media change only for Abhimanyu Kaul?

It’s also inexcusable that the Indian PM is shown declaring
loudly in a speech at the UN that Hindi is India’s national language. Err, some
rudimentary research would have taught the writers that India does not have an officially
recognised national language.

The direction is as patchy as the writing. On the one
hand, debutant Syed Ahmad Afzal seems assured in his handling of the scenes where
Abhimanyu’s personal and professional lives intersect, often to comical effect,
or where he is taking on his party’s bigwigs. Yet in too many places a juvenile
effort is made to inject profundities into the proceedings. Most in-your-face
of them all is a shot of Abhi walking down a hospital corridor after his
father’s death and in the opposite direction comes a nurse carrying an infant
in her arms. The old order changeth yielding place to the new…yeah yeah, we get
that, but please make the point more subtly than a Class V student might have
done. And for heaven’s sake, if you want to be taken
seriously, don’t ask your leads to pose around in typical Bollywood style at the
Taj Mahal.

In the overall assessment, it's only fair to point out that this is a film with many interesting
elements: the resemblance to real-life incidents and individuals, some
unexpected twists and turns, the dilemma of a girlfriend who is not keen on
marriage but is suddenly thrust into a situation where not marrying the man she
loves could harm his career. The songs too are nice, Suno na sangemarmarki ye
minarein is especially so. Despite all this going for it, Youngistaan still ends up feeling flat
and dull for three reasons: inconsistent writing, inconsistent direction and a
weak lead actor.

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About Me

Anna MM Vetticad is an award-winning journalist, journalism teacher and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, an overview of the Hindi film industry presented through an account of a year in which she watched every single Bollywood film released in India’s National Capital Region. A journalist since 1994, she has worked with India Today, The Indian Express and Headlines Today. At HT she hosted her own interview show Star Trek which drew all India’s eminent entertainment personalities. While Anna has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes editorial person, she has also reported on most major Indian entertainment and lifestyle events and several international ones including Cannes and the Oscars, in addition to being the film critic for Headlines Today. She is currently reporting and writing for multiple publications on cinema and social issues with a focus on gender concerns. The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic is available on amazon.com, ebay.in, flipkart.com, ombooksinternational.com, ombooks.com, infibeam.com, homeshop18.com and dialabook.in among other websites, and in stores across India. Twitter: @annavetticad